filter
(fîl´ter)
noun1.a. A porous material
through
which a liquid or gas is passed in order to separate the fluid from
suspended
particulate matter. b. A device containing such a substance.2.Any of various electric,
electronic, acoustic, or optical devices used to reject signals,
vibrations,
or radiations of certain frequencies
while passing others.

verbfiltered, filtering, filters
verb, transitive1.To pass (a liquid or gas)
through a filter.2.To remove by passing
through
a filter: filter out impurities.

verb, intransitive1.To pass through or as
if through a filter: Light
filtered through the blinds.2.To come or go gradually
and in small groups: The audience filtered back into the hall.

filter (fil'ter) noun1. A program or set of
features
within a program that reads its standard or designated input,
transforms
the input in some desired way, and then writes the output to its
standard
or designated output destination. A database
filter, for example, might flag information
of a certain age.2. In communications and
electronics, hardware or software that selectively passes certain
elements
of a signal and eliminates or minimizes others. A filter on a
communications network,
for example, must be designed to transmit a certain frequency but
attenuate
(dampen) those above it (a lowpass filter), those below it (a highpass
filter), or those both above and below it (a bandpass filter).3. A pattern or mask that
data is passed through to weed out specified data. For instance, a
filter
used in e-mail or in retrieving newsgroup messages can allow users to
filter
out messages from other users.4. In computer graphics,
a special effect or production effect that is applied to bitmapped
images;
for example, shifting pixels within an image, making elements of the
image
transparent, or distorting the image. Some filters are built into a
graphics
program, such as a paint program or an image editor. Others are
separate
software packages that plug into the graphics program.

collaborative filtering
(ke-lab`er-e-tiv
fil'ter-êng) nounA means of deriving
information
from the experiences and opinions of a number of people. The term was
coined
by Doug Terry at Xerox
PARC, who first used the technique by allowing users to annotate
documents
as they read them and to choose which documents to read next based not
only on their content but also on what others wrote about them. A
common
use of collaborative filtering is the creation of lists of World Wide
Web
pages of interest to particular people; by documenting the experiences
of several people, a list of interesting Web sites can be "filtered."
Collaborative
filtering is also used as a marketing research tool- by keeping a
database
of opinions and ratings regarding several products, researchers can
predict
which new products the people contributing to the database will like.

packet filtering

packet filtering (pak'et
fil`ter-êng) nounThe process
of controlling network access based on IP addresses. Firewalls will
often
incorporate filters that allow or deny users the ability to enter or
leave
a local area network. Packet filtering is also used to accept or reject
packets such as e-mail, based on the origin of the packet to ensure
security
on a private network.

e-mail filter

e-mail filter (ê'mâl fil`ter) nounA feature in e-mail-reading software that
automatically
sorts incoming mail into different folders or mailboxes based on
information
contained in the message. For example, all incoming mail from a user's
Uncle Joe might be placed in a folder labeled "Uncle Joe." Filters may
also be used either to block or accept e-mail from designated sources.

Aesthetics

'Tis the perception
of the beautiful,A fine extension of the
faculties,Platonic, universal,
wonderful,Drawn from the stars, and
filtered through the skies,Without which life would
be extremely dull.Lord Byron (1788-1824),
English poet. Don Juan, cto. 2, st. 212.

Boredom

Boredom is not an
end-product,
is comparatively rather an early stage in life and art. You've got to
go
by or past or through boredom, as through a filter, before the clear
product
emerges.F. Scott Fitzgerald
(1896-1940), U.S. author. The Crack-Up, "Notebook I" (ed. by Edmund
Wilson, 1945).

Mycofiltration

When I first moved to my
property in Kamilche Point, Washington, I installed an
outdoor mushroom
bed in a gulch leading to a saltwater beach where clams and oysters
were
being commercially cultivated. An inspection showed that the outflow
of water
from my property was jeopardizing the quality of my neighbor's
shellfish,
with the bacteria count close to the legal limit. The following year,
after
the mushroom mycelia
colonized the beds, the coliform count decreased to nearly undetectable
levels. Mycelia can serve as unparalleled biological filters.
This
led to the term I have coined, "mycofiltration": the use of fungal mats
as biological filters.

Evolutionary
biologists consider humans to be an unevolving species. Some time in
the last fifty thousand years, with the invention of culture, the
biological evolution of humans ceased and evolution became an
epigenetic, cultural phenomenon.

Tools, languages,
and philosophies began to evolve, but the human somatotype remained the
same. Hence, physically, we are very much like people of a long time
ago.
But technology is the real skin of our species. Humanity, correctly
seen
in the context of the last five hundred years, is an extruder of
technological
material. We take in matter that has a low degree of organization; we
put
it through mental filters, and we extrude jewelry, gospels, space
shuttles.
This is what we do. We are like coral animals embedded in a
technological
reef of extruded psychic objects. All our tool making implies our
belief
in an ultimate tool. That tool is the flying saucer, or the soul,
exteriorized
in three-dimensional space. The body can become an internalized holographic
object embedded in a solid-state, hyperdimensional matrix
that is eternal, so that we each wander through a true Elysium.- Terence McKenna - _New Maps Of Hyperspace_

There is an ecology of information. Stars will die; people
and gods will die, but information is conserved. Macroscopic
information decays to microscopic information. But microscopic
information is eventually concentrated. Nothing is lost.

Here we are at this great
revolutionary music, where we use crystals
and electricity to create
soundenergy. We have suddenly got this massive change in music, where
you can use any sound you want in the world. And you've broken the
mould that the piano set up, and you suddenly enter into a realm of
pure frequency again - rhythm and
frequency, from which to build a new structure. But where is our
reference point in the western world? Where is that reference point for
why I'm gonna make this kind of music?And
that's why the filter becomes cloudy and thats where it's important to
attain an independent network for
musicians and creative people.

What the teleporter does is what the shaman goes through during the initiatory
experience - deconstruction/reconstruction, or death and resurrection.
Like a shaman, Brundle (initially) becomes 'superhuman' as a result of
this experience, incredibly strong and energetic. He says, "I'm
beginning to think that the sheer process
of being taken apart atom by atom and being put back together again...
Why, it's like coffee being put through a filter - it's somehow a
purifying process."

According to Pribram this
does not mean there aren't china cups and grains of beach sand out
there. It simply means that a china cup has two very different aspects
to its reality. When it is filtered
through the lens of our brain it manifests as a
cup. But if we could get rid of our lenses, we'd experience it as an
interference pattern. Which one is real and which is illusion? "Both
are real to me," says Pribram, "or, if you want to say, neither of them
are real."

i hear a lot of
complaints, mostly designers, on how this site looks bad with all the
animated .gifs. this is intentional
to filter out all the design focused, Flashcentric people who only
search the network for eye candy.
it's the same type of mental approach of one who evaluates a party
based on "who is spinning". i don't want people who ignore
content to be interested in my site. just like desert parties,
where it is hard to get directions to, hard to navigate through - the
result is that you spend your currency in the information era: your attention. you PAY attention and take
care to make the party experience memorable. it's not a weekly
club, it's not an urban weekend drug fest. the best party happens
on a weekday, when most people "have to work". all of these
elements create a filtering mechanism. you know that those who
make it through the obstacles really have their hearts in it.
it's special. you can't buy it. you can't make it easy by
doing a shortcut. you have to really slug through it. in
other words, you have to be at one with the process
and the experience. because of the effort, you have to MAKE IT
GOOD. make it good. you ARE the party. so if all you care
about is having something look good, then this stuff isn't for you...
sure, interfacing is important, but
i don't want it to be the focus.
sure mixing is important, but i don't want it to be the focus.
this isn't flash. this isn't marketing. this isn't
hype. - @Om*
2/5/02

their hit _Hey Man, Nice Shot_ MP3 (224k) off of _Short Bus_ CD on Reprise (1995) was
rumored to either be about Nirvana
vocalis Kurt Cobain, or the R. Budd Dwyer, former treasurer of the
state of Pennsylvania who shot himself in the early nineties at a live
press conference because of an impending scandal